Dade Business Leaders Vow To Defeat Casinos

March 22, 1986|By Robert A. Liff, Sentinel Miami Bureau

MIAMI — Dade County's power elite dedicated itself Friday to defeating the casino gambling constitutional amendment on the Nov. 4 ballot and began chipping in $50,000 checks toward a goal of a $2.5 million campaign war chest.

Gov. Bob Graham, former Gov. Reubin Askew, Attorney General Jim Smith, former Secretary of State Jesse McCrary and Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez joined business leaders led by Miami Herald publisher and Knight-Ridder Co. chairman Alvah Chapman at a luncheon.

Chapman called the anti-casino campaign ''a mission and a cause and a crusade in which there is no more important issue facing the citizens of Florida this year.''

Checks totaling $210,00 were donated to No Casinos Inc., the group headed by St. Petersburg businessman Jack Eckerd.

Amerifirst Savings and Loan, Centrust Savings, Southeast Bank and Ryder Systems trucking company each contributed $50,000. Miami Dolphins owner Joe Robbie chipped in $10,000. An Eckerd aide announced a $100,000 contribution from Eckerd. Askew said plans call for $800,000 to be raised in Dade County.

Pro-casino forces, led by Miami Beach hoteliers and other tourism industry leaders, are expected to spend about $5 million promoting the amendment. Both sides plan to advertise heavily on television.

Askew, warning that casinos would serve as ''a laundering machine'' for illegal drug money, said four counties -- Dade, Broward, Orange and Osceola -- now have hotels with at least 500 rooms, the minimum required for housing casinos under the proposed amendment.

Askew warned that if the amendment passes casino proponents could flood other counties with money to get voter-required, local option approval for casinos and then build hotels to accommodate them.

''There's no area of Florida that's going to ultimately avoid slot machines if this proposal passes,'' Askew said. ''If you think you can keep organized crime from running the casinos, then you've got to also believe in the tooth fairy.''

Suarez, stressing an argument that seems to be emerging as the central anti-casino thrust, said the economic health of the state and city means casinos are not necessary.

''In the city of Miami, where so many things have gone right lately, the issue of casino gambling makes almost no sense,'' he said.